[BrainbellJangler]

Hello all,

I've looked at various options on how best to store/edit/share my photos. It's frustrating because I'm not sure there is an ideal solution.

In short: I have thousands of iPhone photos and thousands of Pentax photos (mostly RAW+JPG) that I'd like to be able to edit, share, create books, etc, all in one place.

I'm a mac user with 13 years or so of iPhone photos, and maybe 10,000 JPG/DNG DSLR photos stored locally (and backed up). I'm not opposed to a non-Apple solution (say Adobe CC or Mylio), but as my family all have iPhones and I'm pretty tied to the Apple ecosystem, it seems easiest to stick with an Apple-based solution.

This would mean importing all my non-iPhone photos into Apple Photos. I'm often happy enough with the Pentax jpg output, but not always. I want to be able to edit RAW files but they're non-destructive, and I don't think my changes would show up in Apple Photos. Apple Photos itself has editing but it's not as good as LR or darktable or Pixelmator Pro - I'd prefer to use one of those.

I'm starting to think the best solution is to edit locally, save as JPG, and only upload JPG to Apple, but for heaven's sake, it seems like I should be able to have DNG on Apple with edits visible.

The main alternative is Adobe, but then not only would I have to upload all my Pentax pics but also my iPhone ones.

Looking for advice with anyone in a similar position. This is very frustrating for me and detracts from my experience.

Thanks

[Robot camera]

I'm also on an iMac, and I am going to be updating to the latest DxO Optics app. I've been using an older version for years, and it processes RAWs, tiffs, or jpegs. I understand that the latest version has a file management function which I'll probably go for; I've been using Adobe Bridge for ages, but when I update my operating system it'll have to be the new version, which I'm told needs an internet connection to function. The DxO management sounds like a better idea.

[JohnMc]

Not sure I follow. A .jpeg is a .jpg is a .JPG, on any device. Apple Photos works on .DNG's. Not my first choice but it works. There's a plethora of choices to work with raw/dng, From Affinity Photo to RawTherapee to ... All of which would allow further/better raw handling with export to Photos as jpg's, all of which will perform better from local device/storage than online.

[seventhdr]

I think that the key takeaway here is the original posters desire to share photos from his devices with other family membes while staying in somesort of ecosystem which everyone is happy with navigating.

Personally I'm in the Adobe ecosystem, as well as Microsoft OneDrive, which works well across "my" devices but I don't openly share everything with other family members. If I do need to shave with others it's usually via Dropbox.

Regards

Chris

[rpjallan]

I don’t use the Photos app much but I’m pretty sure there is an Edit in External app option there somewhere. Also DXO have some sort of Photos plugin available too if you own any of their apps.

[ramseybuckeye]

I use Adobe Lightroom Classic to edit and convert my photos. On import I have set up Lightroom to create a folder named with the date on my hard drive to a "year" folder that I have set up. It also renames the files with the camera, date, and a sequence number (example: 20230313-Pentax K-3 Mark III-072). The files are stored on my hard drive, not within LR, but it does save a pointer to each file so you can bring them back up in LR. If I wanted to do the same with iphone files I could. So I can access these within LR, or just via the Mac's file system. I believe you can do this with Adobe Bridge also. I do this on import and have been doing it for many years, did it on a PC before I switched to a Mac. You could go back and do it on older files also because it picks up the date the photo was taken from the exif, I think that would be a massive time consuming job that may not be worth the effort - but then it may. An example I have under my top level folder I have year folders, like the current "2023", under it is a folder for each day I have shot, today's is "20230313", inside the folder is the raw files and the jpgs that I exported, sometimes a subfolder, usually temporary where I have exported smaller files or other for specific purposes, like submissions to ebird. I try to keep the current year and the previous year on the main drive, and move others to external drives.

Once it was setup it is pretty well automated, except for creating a new folder each year. When I go through photos I have shot I will reject and delete photos, LR will also delete them on the disk if you tell it to (actually goes to the trash can), which I do. You can easily select photos to go to a shared folder also, there are a lot of options.

My workflow works well for me, it may or may not for you.

[jimmm18]

I just went through an reorg of my system.

I put all my pictures files on 2 drives, usually organized by camera or by event. One is a NAS and one is the hard drive of my main computer. The NAS assures they are backed up an I have access to them if I am on my laptop at home. I use lightroom and create catalogs at my wim for whatever I am working on. I export my files to another drive organized again by camera or event and these are all jpg's. It is not on a NAS or cloud location though it could be. Then if I want to share them I upload them to flickr and send links to those who have an interest; family friends people in the pictures.

If I am traveling I put them on my laptop, same system and upload the exports to a usb (so my wife can share them) This removes the inconsistancy of wifi speeds when we travel. I also back them up to another usb drive.

[MaineNative]

The professionals might laugh at me, but I use Adobe Elements to organize my photos. (I use Photoshop CC to edit the photos, but Elements to organize them.)

I don’t take lots of pictures… a few shoots per month. I upload the files using Elements which creates a folder based on the upload date. I then tag the photos with multiple tags, such as “Sunset” or “Panorama” so I can search later. The GPS geo-tagging in Elements has always been hit-or-miss… don’t know if the latest update is any better.

You can run Elements on a Mac and you can still buy Elements with a perpetual (no time limit) license instead of a subscription. I keep all my files on my main drive, so I don’t work with offline or archived photos. I probably have 20,000 photos.

The key for me is making sure I have the time to tag the photos when I upload them. However, Elements can search for untagged photos, as well.

[77me]

Hello all,

I've looked at various options on how best to store/edit/share my photos. It's frustrating because I'm not sure there is an ideal solution.

In short: I have thousands of iPhone photos and thousands of Pentax photos (mostly RAW+JPG) that I'd like to be able to edit, share, create books, etc, all in one place.

I'm a mac user with 13 years or so of iPhone photos, and maybe 10,000 JPG/DNG DSLR photos stored locally (and backed up). I'm not opposed to a non-Apple solution (say Adobe CC or Mylio), but as my family all have iPhones and I'm pretty tied to the Apple ecosystem, it seems easiest to stick with an Apple-based solution.

This would mean importing all my non-iPhone photos into Apple Photos. I'm often happy enough with the Pentax jpg output, but not always. I want to be able to edit RAW files but they're non-destructive, and I don't think my changes would show up in Apple Photos. Apple Photos itself has editing but it's not as good as LR or darktable or Pixelmator Pro - I'd prefer to use one of those.

I'm starting to think the best solution is to edit locally, save as JPG, and only upload JPG to Apple, but for heaven's sake, it seems like I should be able to have DNG on Apple with edits visible.

The main alternative is Adobe, but then not only would I have to upload all my Pentax pics but also my iPhone ones.

Looking for advice with anyone in a similar position. This is very frustrating for me and detracts from my experience.

Thanks

I think you can continue to use Photos.

As others have pointed out you can use Photos and 3rd party tools to edit if you wish using Photos' edit "Edit With..." option or using Photos plugins from 3rd party tools such as " Pixelmator Pro" and others.

When you import your DNG+JPEGS or other originals you can choose to copy them to the Photos library or keep them where ever you have them stored. If you want to use iCloud photos you need to copy them to the Photos library. Using iCloud photo stream you should have most of the photos from you iPhone on your mac in Photos.


Photos is non-destructive so whenever you edit a photo, you will always have your untouched original plus the latest modified version. I believe you can use multiple tools to make your edits. I use ON1 and save my edits using PSD files. After editing using ON1, I can continue editing using the built-in Photos tools. At any time I can click the reset button and get back to the original.

[dvoth]

I use GraphicConverter for organizing my photos. The program is useful for browsing and organizing, editing, including a non-destructive editor, and converting your files to whatever format you need. You can open up images in external editors as well. I also use Photos, but for keeping my photos after I have worked on them and converted them to JPEGs. I import the ones I want to keep there. Importing the images into Photos is simply a matter of selecting the images and using the share icon.

I have the a minimal iCloud subscription to have my Photos library sync between devices. On reason I don't want to put everything in Photos is that on the hard drive Photos has all the images stored in one large image catalogue. With the GraphicConverter Browser you are dealing with image files and folders that are the same in the Finder and so you just need to find a good folder structure and backup method.